


As Always

by Azulet



Series: Friendships [16]
Category: Fly By Night Series - Frances Hardinge
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Companions, Comrades, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Male-Female Friendship, No Romance, Non-Linear Narrative, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Survival, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azulet/pseuds/Azulet
Summary: An introspection into Clent and Mosca's relationship.





	As Always

It wasn’t exactly that they were friends. They weren’t not friends, though. Mosca and Clent were two people – and a goose, to be fair to Saracen – who shared a passion for words, and a determination not to be squelched under the foot of the world. And they saw each other as a way to accomplish that goal.

So, they weren’t quite friends, but they were allies. Plenty of people mistook their relationship; either assuming they cared more for each other than they actually did, or assuming they cared less.

Clent wasn’t a particularly fatherly figure for Mosca, but he most certainly wasn’t of romantic interest either. Perhaps a long-suffering yet knowledgeable uncle and his strong-willed, troublesome niece would come closest to matching their particular situation.

They had played that role more than once, and Mosca delighted in her “uncle’s” forced kindness while they were in the company of others. Clent retaliated by instructing his “niece” to fetch him food or go to bed at unreasonably early hours.

“After all,” he would say with a sigh and a sad smile, “I am all the family that poor girl has left in this world, and it is my _duty_ –” there was extra emphasis on this word, to indicate the noble and self-sacrificing nature of such a duty, “to care for her, helpless as she is.”

Mosca would excuse herself from the room, fuming, but knowing she couldn’t say anything in front of their new “friend”, lest their newest money-making scheme be discovered.

Affection didn’t come naturally to either of them.

There was a fierce bond, a camaraderie, tying them together, and if either tried to get free, they would undoubtedly cut themselves in the escape, and leave the other bruised and tangled in a mess of abandoned moments.

Trust, then, not to be a savoir, but to stay true to one’s own nature of survival.


End file.
